Confederate soldier honored with memorial

A Confederate memorial service and military stone dedication was held at 11 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 28, at the Macey Cemetery, north of Monette, to honor Pvt. Henry Thomas Pitts.

The special service was presented by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, James Wiseman Honnoll Chapter United Daughters of the Confederacy, Children of the Confederacy and Military Order Stars and Bars. Members of the organizations were dressed in period outfits and military accessories.

Colonel W. Danny Honnoll, of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, welcomed the friends and family of Henry Thomas Pitts, who had gathered at the cemetery for the dedication program. Sgt. Terry Lee Bandy gave the invocation.

Colonel Honnoll led the SCV memorial service. Jackie Pardew represented the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Tony Pardew represented Children of the Confederacy, John R. Malloy, III, represented the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and M. Ray Jones, III, represented the Military Order of Stars and Bars Arkansas Society.

Members of the Thirtieth and Seventh Arkansas Infantry presented a three volley gun salute, using antique weapons. Sgt. Doyle Yearta and Capt. M. Ray Jones served as honor guard.

Bobbie Barnett, representing the widow Pitts, was dressed in a long black antebellum mourning dress and veil and laid a bouquet of roses on her husband's grave at the conclusion of the services.

Col. Honnoll led the group in singing "Dixie" as he presented the Confederate flag.

Members of the Pitts family were recognized following the ceremony.

The Confederate soldier being honored, Henry Thomas Pitts, was born Dec. 6, 1834, in Newberry County, S.C., and died Dec. 19, 1900, in Monette. He married Mary J. Whitson in 1857 (she died in 1864) and married Elizabeth Francis Gaines in 1866.

Pitts moved to Buffalo Island in the early 1880s and bought 40 acres of land in the Macey Community to farm.